After the founding of our country, Tripoli was the first nation to declare war on the United States. The Barbary Coast countries would demand tribute (large bribes) for sailing their waters, capture American sailors and enslave them. William Eaton led a small band of Marines (ten in all) across 500 miles of Egyptian desert to find and empower Hamet Karamanli (younger brother to the despot Tripoli ruler Yussef) to free over 300 enslaved sailors (doing hard labor for 19 months) of the USS Philadelphia and negotiate a peace with the United States that would no longer involve paying tribute or enslaving American sailors. This five month long, arduous trek involved being captured and imprisoned by a band of Turks, hunger, thirst, mutinies and threatened desertion. Even Hamet himself attempted to abandon the project out of cowardice several times. Miraculously, through sheer willpower Eaton and his men (accumulating friendly bands to Hamet along the way) made it to Tripoli's city of Derne and won a battle totally outmanned against a city's offenses.
Poised to stike a victorious coup alongside US naval ships, newly arrived to assist and replace the ruthless tyrant Yussef Karamanli (who killed his older brother for power and would later attempt to kill Hamet), American Consul General Tobias Lear negotiated a peace (along with a secret treaty totally in Tripoli's favor) stopping Eaton in his tracks. Eaton was forced to withdraw his men. Dejected (leaving Hamet's followers at the mercy of Yussef) Eaton and Hamet's family sailed away on the cusp of what would have terminated by force America's Tripoli problems. The United States Senate issued a commission to investigate the circumstances, only to have Thomas Jefferson (who possessed great pensmanship but little ardor for battle as was evidenced when he fled the Virginia capitol as its governor on horseback under British siege) intermeddled to keep the status quo. It was later revealed that Tobias Lear, while negotiating, was simultaneously engaged in a commercial enterprise of wheat that was threatened by relations with Tripoli. He found it in his best interest to placate the tyrannical leader Yussef and did (spending over $500k of America's money for "diplomatic" reasons, an inordinate sum for the times). This same Tobias Lear was also caught stealing from George Washington (pocketed rent money from one of George Washington's properties) while in George Washington's employ and also swindled a business partner. Ironically, it was William Eaton, when serving as the American Consul to Tripoli before Lear, who advocated these diplomatic posts mandate no commercial conflicts of interest.
Thomas Jefferson as President, refused to answer William Eaton's charges of treaty issues and premature negotiation, and covered for Lear's actions. No coincidence that it also later came to light that Tobias Lear destroyed much of George Washington's papers that involved Jefferson's conflicts with Washington. Politics among cowards and thieves is never pretty nor desired. The political lesson in it all is that it does not serve the country to place bad characters in office or diplomatic posts. Yes, this tale has a sad and bitter ending with William Eaton, a man of much principle and proven courage, essentially drinking himself to death as he spent his last years attempting to seek right for Hamet and setting the record straight. Thomas Jefferson forever refused to acknowledge in public the secret treaty Lear negotiated nor respond to Eaton's charges. Dead men do speak as time has a way of unearthing the truth. William Eaton, with his heart in the right place, achieved the impossible in Marine like fashion and may his memory forever blazon to remind us all of indomitable courage aptly captured in the lyrics of the Marine hym, "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli....."
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